The Fushigi Ball appeals to many aspects of my personality- mediocre magician, out of practice juggler, gadget freak, fidgeter extraordinaire, and someone just fascinated by spheres. Basically, this is just a steel ball in an acrylic shell but it lets you do some pretty cool things.Watching the video is amazing, and although I know how to do some of those tricks with a plain juggling ball (in a form called ‘contact juggling’), the design and appearance of the Fushigi takes it to a new level.
I have not tried one yet, but I would not count on the tricks being as easy as they look (remember the guys in the malls tossing those big foam planes around, and when you tried it, it crashed and broke. Or was that just me?) However, I can see where the design of the Fushigi would make some effects easier to do and others more visually fascinating.
Don’t juggle? The ball also looks like an interesting fidget toy- interesting and soothing to roll around, and it would probably just be fascinating to just manipulate and watch it, rather like a crystal ball. Not a bad deal for $19.95, not including shipping. As mentioned, many of the effects can be done with any type of ball, and you can get nice acrylic spheres at Amazon, etc. but the 3″ Fushigi is actually cheaper than many of those options.
(By the way, if you want to learn to juggle, the Internet, Amazon, etc. are filled with books and videos, but the easiest way is from someone who already knows how.)
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Very cool. I’m going to go order one right now. I’m a complete sucker for stuff like this. Thanks Mark!
It looks like a $0.50 clear rubber ball that they’ve polished up and are hype the hell out of it. It’s something designed to sell overpriced crap to hyperactive 9 year olds, as evidenced from it having purchased the number one commercial spot on Cartoon Network all weak.
95% sure this is as much of a scam as all those $50 yoyos from 20 years ago.
@Burzmali We’ll find out, I ordered one. I’ll do a review 🙂
How bad could it be? They even give you a FREE DVD! …and that’s a $40 value!!!
@Julie- I have not ordered mine yet, but my birthday is coming up in another month or so and it is on my wishlist! The problem will be if I can hold off that long before I just order one!
@Burzmali- none of the other reviews I read before I decided to post this suggest such a thing, but I know I am waiting to see what Julie thinks as well!
@Julie – Cool! I’ve seen the ad on late-night TeeVee a few times & didn’t quite want to pull the trigger – you can be our guinea pig!
Yep-contact juggling.
I live in a great neighborhood. My neighbor contact juggles whenever we ask nice. And his friend comes over for parties and spins fire.
Phew.
I can’t wait to read Julie’s review! I wonder if the metal ball inside is free to rotate giving a kind of gyroscopic effect…
Looks nice but no way I am giving that shoddy website my VISA info.
Give me paypal support and I’ll buy one.
Here a couple of reactions from the juggling community:
http://www.jugglingdb.com/news/thread.php?group=1&offset=0&thread=168814&id=239972
http://www.jugglingdb.com/news/thread.php?group=1&offset=0&thread=168801&id=239874
My own (very brief) thoughts:
There is no way this will take off, it is simply far harder to do than they suggest in the publicity!
As a professional juggler (a job which does generally have a very different (higher!) level of respect and seriousness in Europe than in the USA), I find the idea and execution of the whole concept campaign very insulting. There is also a whole other, very involved, argument about intellectual and artistic rights, which has been ongoing for years amongst crystal / acrylic ball manipulators, due to many of the manipulative moves being the original creation of one artist, Michael Moschen, in the 1980s:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksuJ_LMewYg
Very interested to hear what Julie has to say about it when she receives hers!!
@Luke Wilson- I find it fascinating that any time anyone promotes a device, toy, or system that seems to be trying to cross over from a specialty group (contact jugglers, close-up magicians, yo-yo manipulators, oil painters, woodworkers etc.) to the general public, the group in question usually has a first reaction of ‘how horrible for us’ in some way.
Most of the time, the hype just blows away after a while- often having brought a few more aficionados into the specialty group and leaving the general public a bit more aware of the field.
I have not seen one of these things yet destroy the specialty group. Heck, even massive YouTube showings of how to do almost every trick ever created has not hurt performing magicians much. (Granted, it makes it more likely that a wannabe like me will do a trick and someone in the audience will not only know it, but be able to do it better!)
In the meantime, it is sure fun to read the forums about it, isn’t it?
i reallly want one and soo what if its a scam it still looks fun to just mess around with! Julie have you gotten yours yet?
@ToyTinkerer Not yet. Seems like it’s taking an awfully long time to get to me… Maybe it’s coming from China.
yea i wonder how it is, im so curious when Julie will get the Fushigi Ball. Can you email me Julie when you get it
@Supertissue I received it (FINALLY) just a week or two ago. My verdict is – don’t bother. Most of the commenters were right, it’s just a regular ball. I thought it might be a rotating ball inside another ball. It’s just a silver ball with a clear coating. Nothing special. I haven’t watched the DVD or tried to do any tricks with it yet…
Oh ty but i still feel that i want to buy one. Does it really defy gravity and and you make it stick on your hand like on TV?
@Supertissue Like I said, it’s just a neat looking ball. Nothing special about it otherwise as far as I can see. I’ll have to watch the DVD instructions to see how to do the tricks.
@ Suppertissue- most of the effects are simple tricks that anyone can do with most any ball if you know how. Do some searches for ‘contact juggling’ to find most of the tricks.
@ Julie- Dang. I was hoping it would be cooler than that. Should have figured that the more enthusiasm in an infomercial, the more likely it is to let you down.
i just wanted to say that you can buy yours at walmart or at walgreens
but i got fushigi at walmart for the same price
but with out the shipping and handling
prices
but i think it is great and woderful
i can already do half the tricks
and as you can clearly see the fushigi
does not float on its own
Um, you’ve never used the object, but purport to review it? C’mon, get real.
@Bill D that wasn’t a review… it was a news post…
THE FUSHIGI BALL IS A SCAM. ITS A PIECE OF SHIT. JUST USE A DAMN OLD BASEBALL OR TENNIS BALL TO PRACTICE CONTACT JUGGLING BECAUSE THERES A 99.99% CHANCE YOU’LL DROP THE DAMN BALL AND SCRATCH/BREAK IT. SO DON’T BUY IT, ESPECIALLY FROM THE WEBSITE OR OVER THE PHONE.
P.S. JULIE YOU LOOK LIKE A FREAKING NERDY COLLEGE BOY THAT HAS NO FRIENDS
@Me Yup, the Fushigi is a scam. I’m not quite sure why me looking like a nerdy college boy has to do with the Fushigi though…
FOLLOW-UP: Thanks to Julie’s pioneering efforts, I still have not bought one of these, even though I am seeing them everywhere locally. I am still bummed it was not something cooler.